The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-06-20
HOW TO SAVE THE CITIES
REV. TALMAGE DISCOURsEs ON
MUNICIPAL CORRUPTION

The Kinds of Salt Needed for the Pliri-
flying Process The Influence of the
Press Upon the Morals of a Commun-
ity-EducaVion and the Gospel Of
Christ Remedy.
BROOKLYN. June 19.-This morning at
the Tabernacle the Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage
read, previous to the sermon, portions of
Scripture descriptive of ancient cities, and
gave out the hymn
Fields are white the harvest waiting,
Who will bear the sheaves away?"
His text was: "And the men of the city
said unto Elisha, Behold, pray thee, the
situation of this city is pleasant, as my
Lord seeth; but the water is naught, and
the ground barren. And he said, Bring me
new cruise, and put salt therein. And
they brought it TO him. And he went forth
unto the spring of the waters, and cast the
salt in there and said, Thus said the Lord,
/ have healed these waters there shall not
be from thence any more death or barren
land So the waters were healed unto this
day. Kings H., 1922. DR.. Talmage
said:
It is difficult to estimate how much of the
IL
upon good water. The time when, through
well-laid pipes and from safe reservoir, an
abundance of water, from Croton, or Ridge
wood, or Schuylkill is brought into the
city, is appropriately celebrated with ora
tion and pyrotechnic display. Thank God
every day for clear, bright, beautiful, spark
ling water, as it drops in the shower, or
tosses up in the fountain, or rushes out at
the hydrant.
The city of Jericho, notwithstanding all
its physical and commercial advantages,
was lacking in this commercial element.
There was enough water, but it was dis
eased, and the people were crying out by
reason thereof. Elisha the prophet comes to
the rescue. He says: Get me a new cruise;
fill it with salt and bring it to me.n SO the
cruise of salt was brought to the prophet,
and ! see him walking out to the general
reservoir, and he takes that salt and throws
it into the reservoir, and 10! all the impuri-
ties depart, through supernatural and di
vine influence, and the waters are good and
fresh and clear, and all the people clap their
hands and lift up their faces in the gadness.
Water for Jericho-clear, bright, beautiful,
God-given water
At different times have pointed out to
you the fountains of municipal corruption,
and this morning propose to show you
what are the means for the rectification of
those fountains. There are four or five
kinds of salt that have cleansing tenden-
cy. So far as God may help me, shall
bring a cruise of salt to the work, and empty
it into the great reservoir of municipal
crime, sin, and shame, ignorance and abomi-
| nation.
| In this work of cleansing our cities,
| have first to remark, that there is a work
for the broom and the shovel that nothing
| else can do. There always has been an init
| mate connection between Iniquity and dirt.
The filthy parts of the great cities are al
ways the most iniquitous parts. The gut
ters and the pavements of the Fourth ward,
New York, illustrate and symbolic the
character of the people in the Fourth ward.
The first thing that bad man does when
he is converted is thoroughly to wash him
self There were, this morning, on the way
to the different churches, thousands Of men
in proper apparel who, before their conver-
sion, were unfit in their Sabbath dress.
When on the Sabbath see a man uncleanly
in his dress, my suspicious in regard to his
moral character are aroused, and they are
always well founded. So as to allow no ex-
cuse for lack of ablution, God has cleft the
continents with rivers and lakes, and has
sunk five great oceans, and all the world
ought to be clean Away, then, with the
dirt from our cities, not only because the
physical health needs an ablution, but be-
cause all the great moral and religious in
necessity. A filthy city always has been
and always will be wicked city.
Through the uptrrning of the earth for
great improvement our city could not be ex-
pected to be as clean as usual, but for the
illimitable dirt of Brooklyn for the last six
months there is no excuse. 1t is not merely
matter of dust in the eyes, and mud for
the shoes, and of stencil for the noStr1ls. but
Of morals for the soul.
Az inf bof xun
would bring to bear upon the evils of our
great cities is a Christian printing press.
The newspapers Of any place are the test Of
its morality or immortality. The newsboy
who runs along the street with a roll of
papers under his arm is q tremendous force
that cannot be turned aside nor resisted,
and at his every step the city is elevated or
degraded This hungry, all-devouring
American mind must have something to
read, and upon editors, and authors, and
book publishers, and parents and teachers
rest the responsibility of what they shall
read. Almost every man you meet has a
book in his hand or a newspaper in his
pocket. What book is it you have in your
hand! What newspaper is it you have
in your pocket! Ministers may preach,
reformers may plan, philanthropists may
toll for the elevation of the suffering and
the criminal, but until all the newspapers of
the land and all the booksellers of the land
set themselves against an iniquitous litera-
ture-untu then we shall be fighting against
fearful odds. Every time the cylinders of
our great publishing houses turn they make
the earth quake. From them goes forth
thought like an angel Of light to feed and
bless the world, or like an angel OF darkness
to smite it with corruption and sin and
shame and death. May God by His ON
nipotent spirit purify and elevate the
American printing press
90 on further and say that we must de-
pend upon the school for a great deal of
correcting influence. Community can no
more afford TO have ignorant men in its
midst than it can afford TO have ulcaged
hyenas. Ignorance is the mother OF hydra
headed crime. Thirty-one per cent. Of all
the criminals of New York State can neither
read nor write Intelligent darkness is gen
orally the precursor of moral darkness.
know there are educated outlaws--men who,
through their sharpness OF intellect, are
made more dangerous. Theynse their fine
penmanship in signing other peoples
names, and their science i'm ingenious
burglaries, and their fine manners in
adroit libe1tinism. They go their round
of sin with well7cut apparel, and
dangling jewelry and watches Of eighteen
carats, and kid gloves. They are refined,
educated. magnificent villains. But that Is
the exception. 1t is generally the case that
the criminal classes are as ignorant as they
are wicked. For the proof OF what say, go
into the prisons and the pcnitentiares, and
look upon the men and women ineareerated